Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: This was actually originally meant to be in with the last chapter but I got a bit of the ol' writers block. Anyway, because of that it's shorter than the other chapters, I'm really sorry for that but I didn't want to leave you all hanging while I tried to lengthen it out. I hope you don't mind. Forgive me?

Arthur Weasley was not an unintelligent man. He saw the world with a unique perspective, yes, but he was no fool. He suspected that it was the begrudging realisation of this fact that had caused Lucius Malfoy to drop his hardened glare for long enough to communicate with him honestly. This said, he still found himself surprised to have survived the past hour in the infamous Malfoy Manor without being hexed into oblivion or at the very least labeled as a blood traitor by some manic house elf.

"There's something that strikes me about the reports from Voldemort's admittance into St Mungos Lucius," he ventured.

"Oh?" Lucius didn't look up, but merely swirled his dregs of Firewhiskey around their glass.

"Well I admit I wasn't there, and as you've already pointed out I cant say I bore witness to the intent behind his words, but some words are clear enough on their own."

"Your point being?" Lucius snapped tersely.

"You don't seem remotely concerned that Voldemort wants you own hide on a platter."

"That's because I'm not."

"No?" Arthur furrowed his eyebrows in skepticism.

"No."

"Why on earth not man!"

Lucius shrugged wearily, "He will come, and I will die. But not until I've suffered my own son's death. That's my real punishment you see," he looked at Arthur intently for a few moments with a resigned expression on his face, "And after that, what reason would I have to fight him?"

"Your punishment for betraying the cause?"

"I never openly betrayed the cause. I told you, Draco is the last traitor standing. No, my crimes were twofold: Incompetence and having the audacity to avoid Azkaban."

"I don't think I've ever heard you described as incompetent Lucius. 'Sarcastic', 'Vicious', and once 'The living incarnation of cruelty itself', but not incompetent."

"I raised a son capable of following his own path, in his eyes that's about as incompetent as you can get."

"Do you regret any of it? Being a Deatheater I mean?"

Lucius didn't reply. He instead stood up and refilled his glass carefully. Once done he proffered the decanter in his guest's direction, taking the curious nod as an affirmation he refilled the other glass and set the decanter back in it's place on the polished teak sideboard.

"I'm too old now for regrets Arthur. I'm not proud of my life, but at least I had Draco, at least I could be proud of him."

"We'll find him, I promise you that as one father to another."

"Yes, but will he be alive, dead, or in pieces?"

Draco shivered. Clover and Periwinkle flowers brushed his arms and back as they coasted their way around them; incense burned in the hand of an elegant High Priestess as she circled them slowly, whispering to the sea air: "Amodo eris unum, Amodo eris totus..."

The night sky was a landscape of stars that Draco didn't recognise but this only made them more enchanting to him. Harry's eyes followed his gaze and he was smiling, he was nearly always smiling. He found it odd, the Harry he'd known during the war rarely did this, but that was war and this was paradise, so he left the thought half-formed.

The magic the Priestess had cast around their entwined fingers had spread so that now their whole bodies knelt in a sphere of silver light, cushioned by velvet sand and mirrored by the moon above them. Draco felt a flex of power snap through his system and the world began to stumble around him. His eyes burned and he rolled them up under his eyelids to cool them down.

'I can feel you,' a voice whispered inside his head. He opened his eyes to look at Harry and found him shaking slightly.

'Is that what this is?'

Harry nodded unevenly and closed his own eyes. Images stuttered through their minds; Draco saw snakes and fire and himself whirl together in a bizarre carousel of emotions. Colours formed other shapes that he didn't have the comprehension to decipher. He felt fractured and restored, void and absolute, unsure what was his and what was Harry's. Their lips met and the magic around them became chaotic but neither of them registered it fully, their surroundings slipped away and they became lost in a wilderness of their own creation.

And when eternity broke he was blind and sated and numb. The pale dawn on the horizon swept over him like the tide. And then there was Harry, his fingers still entwined with Draco's own.

"In aeternum et die."

A/N:

Sorry for the length again, and Merry Christmas!

Free eggnog for all those who want to review! :)

N.B - The Latin:

Amodo eris unum, Amodo eris totus = From henceforth thou shalt be one, From henceforth thou shalt be whole

In aeternum et die = Forever and a day

x X x

'Rora